Accept

Underground USPM outfit Breaker, from Cleveland, Ohio, have never been shy about wearing one particular influence front and centre on their battle-jackets. When you drop as many subtle hints as these fellows clearly have over their career—wait, who am I kidding? Subtle, my ass. They named themselves after Breaker. They named this EP Accept. The album art features a Dobermann Pinscher (German breed) with a strand of barbed wire running through its ears. These cavaliers couldn’t be any more obvious about it if they all got tattoos of Udo, Herman, Peter and Wolf on their foreheads.

But that doesn’t detract at all from the sheer quality of the music on this EP. Even though Breaker are clearly and self-consciously poking fun at themselves by pointing back to their Accept influence, and even though they open with a straight cover of Accept’s ‘Breaker’, the songs that follow all put some real meat on this EP and give us a clear idea of the sound they’re going for. Without ever really forsaking their USPM roots (except on the ‘hidden’ bonus track at the end, which we’ll get to later), Breaker’s songs on this EP demonstrate a truly remarkable versatility and breadth of ability, such that they showcase a musical character that is much more authentically their own.

Apart from ‘Breaker’, Accept also features a fresh recording of ’10 Seconds in’, the band’s signature track from their debut Get Tough!. It can be dangerous to try to pad out an EP like this with two songs featured elsewhere, but in this case it works well. ’10 Seconds in’ kicks off with Mark Klein’s crisp, driving bass drum line and Michael Klein’s slightly reverbed-out guitar melody, creating a moody atmosphere suggestive of an abandoned industrial-park street on a rainy night. The infectiously-catchy main riff and chorus, with the lyrics weaving a tale of urban violence and the inevitable tragic death that follows, make this one of the more memorable songs on their set: the kind that you’ll find yourself humming and drumming on the steering wheel during your next-day commute.

All the rest is new(-ish) material. Sure, this is power metal of a crunchy mid-tempo guitar-led variety. That’s a constant, and forms the bread and butter of Breaker’s sound. But these guys also take certain queues from mainstream heartland rock in the Bruce Spring-strain and the John Mellen-camp, shall we say – as well as from 1960s British bands, Eddie Van Halen-school hard rock, indie, blues, singer-songwriter style folk, and even funk. (The untitled bonus track at the end, actually, is almost chemically-pure 70s bass-driven funk: taken from one of their first jam sessions together as a band, evidently.) Intriguingly, despite this incredible cosmopolitan range of influences across ages and geographies, from British classic rock to West Coast glam, the sum total effect is intensely specific. One of the reasons I like Breaker so much is that what they play is very much working-class Rust Belt music, with landscapes of urban decay and intimations of both personal and social loss shooting through both the melodies and the lyrics.

Even though ‘Still Life’ is far and away the most technically-impressive piece they’ve put on here – being emotionally evocative and downright heavy, with some stealth lead guitarwork that fascinates more and more with repeat listens – my personal favourite track on here is ‘Action’. Here Jim Hamar gets to throw down some delivery and go for broke on those high Rob Halford wails while Ian Shipley, Mark Klein and Don Depew slam out a riff of pure power between them. This is the easiest tune to bang your head to here, and ‘Until I feel it!’ and ‘And it won’t be long!’ are all but metal-stamped with a notarised guarantee to be stuck in your head for hours afterward.

This Accept EP is an excellent slab of heavy US steel, coming to you straight from where steel was once a way of life, and – honestly no idle praise here – Breaker are truly one of the most musically-talented and genuine underground 80s bands I’ve had the pleasure of encountering recently. Damn. I’m going to have to seek out a copy of Get Tough! soon.

19 / 20